The Ice Monster
by Dr. Sassafrass
Summary: The Doctor and Amy Pond once again land somewhere they didn't want to. This time, they land at a farmer's market, at meet a man crying over his father's death. What's strange is that the father died from being covered in ice. (Side note: This is the first time I've ever put up my writing somewhere public, so if anyone reads this, please DESTROY this with criticism.)
1. Chapter 1

We all know the sound, the wonderful sound of the TARDIS reaching its destination. Of course, we also know that the only reason it sounds like that is because the Doctor leaves the brake on. Still, it sounds better that way.

The blue box was sitting there, and the door opened to reveal the lovely Amelia Pond. However, she wasn't so lovely this time, considering the screwed up face she was making at where they were. She turned.

"Doctor, you need to learn how to fly this thing."

The Doctor came skidding up from inside the TARDIS.

"What are you talking-"

In front of them, there was a parking lot, scattered with people and market stalls displaying all types of grown food.

"Right…" the Doctor finally eeked out. "Last time I checked, this isn't what the 2nd moon of Jupiter looks like…"

Amelia looked up at the Doctor. "Do kinda feel like an apple or two right now…what about you?"

The Doctor simply motioned forward and Amelia giggled slightly and stepped out of the box onto the pavement.

Amelia was sitting, happily munching on a green apple, the Doctor was fiddling with his screwdriver. The green light kept flashing at random intervals, and he didn't was people to think he was responsible for all the phones in the area going haywire.

"Y'know," he said, the screwdriver still flashing into his eyes, "There are actually times I would rather enjoy myself than meddle in alien business. Every single time the damn TARDIS takes us somewhere I didn't tell it to, and every time my screwdriver starts acting all…GRR!"

The Doctor shook the screwdriver manically, grabbing the attention of some of the people around him. He quickly calmed down. Amelia leaned forward.

"What are you so angry about?" The Doctor huffed and draped his arms on his knees.

"There's something odd about this place. I think the screwdriver is picking something up and…" he shook it again. "I'm just a little tired of aliens for now. Can't we have a break?" He ran his fingers through his hair. "I mean, aren't you?"

Amelia swallowed and wiped her mouth. "I think you're forgetting that I am a human, and you are a Time Lord. I can't see anywhere or anytime by stepping into a magical box." She took a bite. "Not by myself, anyway."

The Doctor stood up, eyes locked on a man in a stall in the distance. He was packing up, and as far as the Doctor could tell, he was crying. Taking a deep breath, the Doctor pushed through the sea of people until he reached the stall, with Amelia following close behind.

"Excuse me?"

The man rapidly wiped his face before turning to the Doctor and his ginger companion. His face was still moist, but the boy tried to hide any sign of crying.

"I'm sorry, s-sir," he replied, sadness infecting his voice. "But we're closing down."

The Doctor slightly straightened his back. "I'm sorry as well, but you seem a little down. Do you need help? I am a doctor." For a second, he thought about showing his psychic paper, but decided against it.

"I apologize if you've seen it," the man sputtered before wiping his face again. "I haven't been able to hold myself together." He gestured to the stall. "My father owns this display, and all the food on it. He died yesterday."

Amy and the Doctor 'aww'-ed simultaneously.

"That's awful." Said Amelia.

"Do you mind me asking how?" asked the Doctor. Amelia slapped his shoulder and muttered 'rude' under her breath.

"No, it's fine." Said the man behind the counter. "But you might think I'm crazy."

"Believe me," interjected Amelia. She pointed at the Doctor. "This one is known to be crazy."

The man wiped his face again then leaned closer to them.

"Okay…okay, okay. He…was frozen to death."

"It's the middle of summer, how does a man die from cold?" Amelia once again slapped the Doctor, this time on the face.

"I'll tell you how," said the man. "I found him in his bathtub, encased in ice."


	2. Chapter 2

Dennis, whose father had been encased in ice, was very cautious about letting a random odd man who called himself 'Doctor' and his friend into his house. But, this Doctor did have his credentials. Truth be told, Dennis didn't even know that the Department of Ice Encasement existed.

And now the duo were in his bathroom, eyeing up his naked father, who was frozen solid. His hands were held spread out in front of him, and pure terror was on his face.

It seemed like this Doctor was a bit more interested in his father than his red-haired friend. She seemed to only like mocking him.

Dennis' wife ran snacks or drinks to the two, which they were starting to depend on, considering they had been observing the frozen man for the last 13 hours. It took a while to actually convince them to sit down and eat. Lydia, Dennis' mother, had accidentally made triple the amount of curry she wanted to, and was glad there were some more people to help get rid of it. However, this Doctor fellow specifically asked for fish sticks and custard. Luckily, Dennis had some extra in his freezer.

"So…" said Dennis' wife after they had all sat down. "Did you figure out what happened to Patrick?"

The Doctor, who remembered he was supposed to be an official of the Department of Ice Encasement, smoothed out his patchwork jacket and licked off the extra custard from his lips.

"I need some details first. Did one of you just happen to walk in and find him like that, or did something prompt you to go in?"

Dennis nervously glanced at his wife before replying.

"I was just walking in with the groceries, and I heard a scream, and I mean a blood chilling scream. I dropped everything and rushed to the hallway, and mum was already in the bathroom with dad. He was covered in ice, and the shower was still spraying on him."

The Doctor cleared his throat. "You know what, I'm going to exchange some words with my colleague here."

Amelia's full mouth only allowed her to make a few muffled 'mmh-mmh' sounds. Despite this, the Doctor grabbed her sleeve and dragged her out the front door.

The wind was quite severe. They were deep into night, but the streetlights managed to stave off the darkness. The Doctor was briskly walking down the sidewalk, and Amelia was right behind him.

"Dog-" Some curry spewed out of her mouth. She chewed and swallowed before speaking again. "Doctor, what's wrong?"

"I've seen this before, Amy. Except that was years ago. I was taking a vacation in Hiroshima and there were a lot of reports of this…thing happening. People would take drinks of water and then randomly get frozen solid." He waited for a reply of some sort, but he only heard Amelia's footsteps behind them. "I tried to find out what was happening, but, I realized the date was August 6, 1945, and I knew Hiroshima wouldn't be around for much longer." He stopped walking. "But whenever someone got frozen, they always died screaming…"

"O-kay, but why is screaming important?"

The Doctor swiveled and faced Amelia.

"In all my life, I've never seen another race cling to life as much as humans." He swiveled and began walking again. "They're screaming because they have to watch, watch as the ice slowly creeps up their body and cover their limbs, and when they can't struggle, they scream. They scream bloody murder-"

The sonic screwdriver began flashing and whirring. The Doctor pulled it out of his pocket and examined it for a second. After a moment, he scanned the area around him before seeing a manhole cover in the middle of the street.

"That's not good." He ran to the manhole and pulled it off. He kneeled and stared down into the dank, lightless sewer.

"What is it now?" Amelia was beginning to sound like a moody teenager.

"This is serious, Miss Pond!" Amy was taken aback, but the Doctor immediately breathed and continued. "Back in Hiroshima, I thought the ice was a sort of disease, passing from mouth to mouth, but no. There's no way fresh water from the tap could have the 'disease'. It's being put there by something. And since my screwdriver is doing this-" he held up the flashing sonic screwdriver, "-that means that something unearthly is doing it." He rose to his feet. "To summarize, there is an alien contaminating the waterways with ice that kills people, and that water could be traveling to thousands of homes **right now**."

Amelia's jaw had slowly widened as the Doctor spoke. After his spiel, she looked down at the ladder leading to the sewer.

"So, you're going to go look for it?"

"That's right. But I need one thing." The Doctor kneeled back down. "You need to stay at Dennis' house. Watch to see if his father changes in any way."

And with that, the Doctor started his descent.

It had been about an hour. The Doctor was scanning every which way with his screwdriver, trying to find alien life. When he saw that the water flowing next to him was an unnaturally bright blue, he put away the screwdriver and crept up to the next turn in the sewer. He poked his head around the corner.

There was a creature there, one that most of us on Earth would call Bigfoot or Sasquatch. There was one difference. Instead of hair, the thing had sharp, crystalline shards of ice sticking out of its body.

It was dipping its hand into the water, allowing the ice to be swept away.

The Doctor felt terror swell up in him. "Xeo's."

The creature heard his voice ring throughout the concrete. It quickly jerked up its head and roared. That's the best way to put it, because the sound it made was closer to the shattering of glass. The Doctor turned and sprinted off, as he had done so many times before.

The Doctor climbed back up the ladder to the outside and replaced the manhole cover with urgency. He turned to go back to Dennis' house, but was confused to see Amelia running to him.

"What are you doing?" Amelia replied through exasperated breaths.

"Ice…Patrick…Bigfoot…"

The Doctor didn't listen to any more, he began running again.

Dennis was terrified. Here he was, trying to keep his bathroom door shut because a Bigfoot-like creature had burst out of his father's ice tomb and was trying to kill him.

That's when the Doctor kicked in his front door, immediately rushed over and picked up a bowl of half eaten curry.

"Let it out!" He steeled himself.

"What? Are you crazy?" Dennis yelled at him.

"Yes," the Doctor yelled back, "This has already been explained to you. Now do it!"

Dennis opened the door. A creature almost identical to the one back in the sewers stumbled out, and replicated the sound of shattering glass. On cue, the Doctor flung the curry onto it, and the shattering glass sounds continued as the thing turned fell to the ground and ceased movement.

"Oh my god." Dennis walked over and kicked the monster on the ground. "What the hell is this thing?"

"Technically," the Doctor sighed, "that's your father."


	3. Chapter 3

It was only a few hours since the whole incident, but the Doctor still felt like it had never ended.

"I was taking a vacation a long time ago. Thought I'd go to Japan. And I did. Parked the Tardis up in Tokyo. A few months in, there were many strange occurrences of Japanese people freezing over, completely solid. I did want to investigate, but…I neglected to remember that it was June of 1945, and that these things would probably be stopped after half the city was blown away.

"There's a planet called Faivis. A long time ago… technically it's in the future… Faivis was littered with caves that were homes to these bastards called Xeo's. Close to Faivis was a planet called Apheor, which held a species of human-sized insects. Kind of like anthropomorphic praying mantises.

"Now those insects tried to colonize Faivis, and being insects, going to a tundra planet was already a bad idea. But Xeo's are a dangerous creature. Their ice hair stuff is a parasite that will latch onto you and slowly cover you in ice. Eventually, after being turned to a solid block, that parasite will start tampering with your DNA and your chemical makeup. Soon enough, you become one of them. Those insects were eventually wiped out by the Xeo's after one snuck onto a ship retreating back to Apheor.

"Human skin is tougher than insect, which is why the insects were taken out so easily. But you're not invincible. That's why Dennis' father and those people in Japan didn't make it. Get covered in the ice or allow it to touch your inner tissue and it'll take root."

The Doctor was noticeably worried, his eyes were filled with dread unlike anything Amelia had ever seen. But he sighed and continued.

"Now I normally don't like killing, but these things are dangerous."

The Doctor jammed his fingernail in his mouth. Amelia knew things were bad.

But in true Doctor fashion, the man whipped out his sonic screwdriver and tampered with it for a few seconds, then handed it to Amy.

"Now Dennis, I'm going to assume you know this area best, considering you live here. I need you to bring Amy to a radio, television station, or someplace with an antennae. If I've done this right, then Amy should be able to broadcast her voice through the antennae with my screwdriver. Any T.V. or radio in a few miles should pick it up. Amy, you need to tell everyone to keep away from their water. Bottled water is fine, nothing from the tap."

At this point, Dennis was completely dumbfounded. Amy, on the other hand, knew she had no time to waste and pulled Dennis by the sleeve out the front door.

"So," said the Doctor, turning to Dennis' mother. "Can I call you Dennis Senior?"

She shook her head.

"Good! Now I'm sure you remember that rather delicious curry you made for us a couple hours ago. How do you feel about making more? And by more I mean…err…maybe twelve bowls more?"


End file.
